Nielsen/Facebook's 'Brand Lift' new beacon of hope for socnet advertising

Facebook has partnered with Nielsen to launch a new system that will ultimately give marketers insight in to the value of advertising on the social network while at the same time ditching a controversial forerunner.

Advertising is key to Facebook's survival. It's the key revenue generator for the business. Until Facebook can convince marketers of the effectiveness of ads on Facebook, and obtain feedback from their members as to the type of ads that work, their scope for increasing revenues is limited.

Hence Facebook's partnership with Nielsen, and the launch of their first offering - "Brand Lift". The platform will poll opted-in Facebook users on ads they see on the social networking website and gauge their sentiments while measuring "aided awareness, ad recall, message association, brand favorability, and purchase consideration". That data will be packaged up by Nielsen and presented to marketers.

"The combination of our unique ability to quickly and effectively poll a sample of our more than 300 million users and Nielsen's expertise in data analysis will give marketers access to powerful data they can use to understand and improve current and future campaigns," said Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

Brand Lift will launch in the U.S. with a small selection of test partners this week and is expected to roll out to all Facebook advertisers within the next few months. The ability to measure the medium and justify social media spend based on solid data will be welcomed by those marketers who plan to increase social media activity in the coming year.

Meanwhile, Facebook is reported to have dropped their original, controversial opt-out service, Beacon, as part of a lawsuit settlement.